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09 02 12 CPJ - DRC journalist Solange Lusiku honored for fortitude

By Jean-Paul Marthoz/CPJ Senior Adviser

Seated near the fireplace in a historical home in Tournai, a medieval town 70 miles from Brussels and a stone's throw from the French border, while snow fell outside, Solange Lusiku Nsimire was enjoying not only the company of friends, but the chance to live for a few days without fearing suspicious noises in the garden or ominous knocks on the door.

Solange Lusiku Nsimire is honored by the Université
catholique de Louvain for her courage as a journalist and
women's rights defender. (Anne-Marie
Impe)

Lusiku is
editor-in-chief and publisher of the independent newspaper Le Souverain in her hometown Bukavu, the
capital of South Kivu province in eastern Congo, one of
the most troubled regions of the DRC. It is a
small and crusading newspaper devoted to promotion of democracy and women in a
country where abuses against democracy and against women are too often the norm.

Two days
earlier, on February 2, Lusiku had been awarded a prestigious
honorary doctorate degree at the Université catholique de Louvain (UCL), a tribute
to her courage as a journalist and women's rights defender. (Also honored were
Salil Shetty, the general secretary of Amnesty International, and Daniel Cornu,
ombudsman of the Swiss media group Edipresse and the author of the acclaimed
essay "Journalisme et Vérité," or Journalism and
Truth.)

Journalism
is a risky assignment in Eastern Congo, a region crisscrossed by roving bands of
Rwanda génocidaires, undisciplined
army conscripts, and predators of all stripes. In 2004, while Lusiku was working
for a local radio station, she had to go underground for a few weeks in order to
escape the security services that had been upset by one of her
stories.

Since she
took over the editorship of Le
Souverain in 2007 from founder Emmanuel Barhayiga, the dangers have
not faded. Since the launch of the paper in 1992, 67 issues of the paper have
been printed. The 68th issue will cover the highly contentious issue of last
year's general elections, in which the incumbent President Joseph Kabila has
been declared winner over the strident protests of his main rival, Etienne
Tshisekedi. Ideally, Lusiku would publish the paper
monthly.

"Journalism
is my calling, the print media is my struggle, and independence is my motto,"
Lusiku insisted
in her speech. Against the backdrop of mauve robes, costumed trumpeters, and
other university pageantry, a large screen showed Lusiku at her desk in a modest
building in Bukavu, together with her staff, preparing the next edition of the
paper.

"Publishing
is not a cakewalk," she said two days later. "We have to live with constant
electricity stoppages, sending email is like sending snail mail, we have to
print in Bujumbura, the capital of neighboring
Burundi." Although its printing costs
seem low at US$1200 per issue, Le
Souverain is not sustainable. It produces 500 copies sold at US$1 a
piece. The fact that each copy is read, according to Lusiku, by more than 100
people, does not help. Le
Souverain needs outside funding.

What makes
her endure all the risks and hardships? A passion for journalism, democracy and
women's dignity. "I will remain an independent pen. Whatever happens I will
continue my struggle to promote democratic values," she said in her speech at
the UCL ceremony.

But there
is also a passion for solidarity. The cooperation of Belgium's French-speaking community, the city of
Brussels, and
local civil society organizations like the Christian workers' movement have been
supporting the paper. Interns from a Brussels journalism school (IHECS) have helped
with layout and newsroom management. The UCL rector has pledged to mobilize
university networks on Lusiku's behalf, and her friends have shipped a 13-ton
press to Bukavu so the paper can be printed locally. "As far as I know the ship
is approaching Dar Es
Salaam," she said with hope.

The
solidarity of local journalists' organizations and international press freedom
groups is also a crucial factor in protecting media
professionals from the violence and arbitrariness that prevails in the
region.

"It is so
comforting to know that friends and colleagues thousands of miles away from
Bukavu care for you," Lusiku said. "I dare hope that those who want to silence
the press understand that is riskier for them if there are people out there who
watch and monitor their abuses."

"It reminds
me of an old proverb that my parents used to tell me," she said. "If a woman
enters the forest to fetch water and has a lion at a distance that protects her,
she knows that she can take all her time and that no other wild animal will
attack her."